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Apple and Sony merger? Never in a million years!

Avatar for 9to5 Staff Feb 18 2008

Bloomberg published a story this weekend on how an Apple-Sony merger makes a lot of sense.  It doesn’t.  Let’s see if we can’t break down each argument point by point:

…adding insult to injury, Apple Inc. continues to hold the spotlight. It really is one of the great business stories of the past 50 years. Sony, the inventor of the Walkman, ceded its leadership in portable music players to Apple’s iPod and continues to lose ground.

It really makes you wonder why Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs doesn’t just buy Sony.

It can’t.  Sony is worth over $45 billion – about the same as Yahoo! which also isn’t possible for Apple to purchase (and might make more sense).  A merger?  Yeah, I can see Steve Jobs ceding some control of Apple to outside forces.

Plus, what would Apple get?  Vaios that run Windows Vista?  A semi successful TV hardware business?  Some screen manufacturing?  The only valuable thing to Apple would be the Playstation line and perhaps the media-entertainment divisions which would, of course, alienate the other media companies that compete on iTunes. 

If Sony is smart, they admit they messed up trying to become a media company and spin off that division.  They focus on hardware and better software and stop being crippled by the MPAA/RIAA-like division of their company.  Of course Stringer is NOT the guy to do this.  When Sony gives up on him, this will be the natural tendency.

Such rumors have circulated before, knocking joysticks out of the hands of regulars of Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district. It’s techie blasphemy to suggest such a thing. It’s almost unthinkable that a name that rose from the ashes of World War II to become a cornerstone of Japan Inc. would be sold to a Silicon Valley guy who doesn’t wear a tie.